Alfred Is Justice! (AJK AU)
by Krysalish
Summary: Amidst the societal turmoil caused by nationwide inflation and the king's incompetence, hundreds of people gather under the banner of an embittered bird who speaks to them of justice and an utopia. They salute him and get up in arms, ready to turn their guns at the king on the bird's order. The bird's name is... comrade Kwak?


Alfred's work was interrupted by a call to the office. He didn't believe it was anything serious, but he was wrong.

"If this is about those blueprints that are late, i've already done with the technical side and only need to draw a few lines and it'll be re-"

"Alfred, you're fired."

"B-But sir...!"

"This isn't due to your schelude slip, but our economic situation. I'm sorry, but in order to survive the depression, we need to cut our expenses."

"But i'll get the pink slip, right? The last wage?"

"I'm afraid not. Coul you leave the building now?"

* * *

Alfred slammed the door shut upon exiting and walked down the street head hunched low. He was out of job, no other jobs were open, and he could even starve to death . And this was just the latest of the misfortunes that had plagued him since his birth.

Now that he paid thought to it, almost all the bad things that had ever happened to him were ultimatelu due to money and greed. Rokodile's amusement park, Rokodile's car, getting locked up in the castle's dungeon on baseless accusations of theft, the inflation and unemployment...

Alfred was starting to feel hungry, but he didn't have a single coin and he didn't want to have to move back in with Henk, he was an adult man and had to be able to take care of himself in situations like this. Even if he wouldn't learn that now, he would have to eventually.

Alfred started heading towards the railway station, hoping for it to be crowded. Concealed by a sea of people, his wing wandered from pocket to pocket in search for money. Stealing still felt wrong, but what can a man do? It wasn't like there were other immediate, if temporary, solutions.

The train was still standing in the middle of the area, and Alfred considered dissappearing to be free from his debts and find work somewhere else, but he didn't want to leave Henk, at least not with Henk never knowing what had happened to him.

Alfred's wing strayed into a new pocket, this time one attached to a green coat. And this time the pocket's owner caught him red-handed.

"What the f-?!"

Alfred tried to flee, but the guy grapped him by the scarf and pulled him back around.

"Alfred?!"

"Dolf?!"

Dolf pried Alfred's fingers off his clothes.

"You picked the wrong pockets. They're empty!"

Hannes appeared on the scene too, he had propably been waiting for Dolf. Alfred put all his stolen money into one wallet, counting up to three hundreds, and offered Dolf and Hannes food from the station's cafeteria. Neither of the three had seen that much money for a very long time, if never.

In the table Hannes tried to start a conversation about how the others had been doing, but both Dolf and Alfred were more interested about the current political climate and what had led to the depression, and Alfred mentioned the king cheating him out of his money and using it all for minor luxuries. There had apparently been riots and street fights in bigger cities, a few people had died, and the army getting involved had only made the things go even further downhill.

"Somebody should do something! This _cannot_ be allowed to go on!" Dolf declared furiously.

"And do what?" Hannes interupted "With what money?"

"The upper class' money i guess. The people have become far too poor to fund anything" Alfred muttered mostly to himself, deep in his thoughts "Private property should be banned and made public, and then the government would employ all it's citizens with equal pay and nobody would no longer be richer or more influential..."

"_Utopistic pipe dreams_! There will always be somebody who's stronger standing above the others! It's only about that person's competence and goodness!"

"And you supposedly are the good and competent?"

Even though Dolf didn't say anything right away, he visibly blew his lid and almost jumped on the table in fury, his hands slamming on the table and knocking Hannes' cup over.

"Are you implying something?!"

People turned to look, and Hannes tried to calm Dolf down.

"Don't lose your shit, Alfred didn't mean that, it just came out wrong..."

Dolf sat down, still glaring at Alfred.

"Equality is an illusion, to hide the power games. The world will always be full of greed and hatred. You just need to learn to harness that hatred if you want to make it."

"Did you learn that from your father?"

"Everyhing i've learned, i've learned from _experience_!"

Despite the moment of peace, the air was filling with tension again. Alfred had already aten his food and left the table.

"You'll see, Dolf. I will recreate this country, and you will see how wrong you were."

* * *

Hannes and Wannes were reading the newspaper from behind Dolf's shoulders. Alfred was the main event, even if the reporters didn't know his name. He had started preaching his ideology in a street corner, and people were listening. Alfred's followers had even faced off against the king's forces after they had been dispatched to interrupt the illegal gathering, and they had gotten their hands on weapons.

"I don't like where this is going..."

"Starts reminding me of South Atrique..."

"What should we do, Dolf?"

Dolf thought for a moment, his gaze never leaving the papers because he hadn't yet finished readind it.

"If Alfred actually succeeds in taking the power, the economy will collapse for good and all our property will apparently be taken away. **Of course** we cannot allow this" He turned towards Wannes "Wannes, gather your friends" Dolf continues "and Hannes, you go get us weapons or anything we can use as weapons. They can't match assault rifles, but we'll be damned if we will watch our country take the path to peril."

Both of them nodded and went on their ways. Dolf stared at the photo where alfred was standing on a barrel, surrounded by dozens of people and red flags. '_Red flags' party_'...

* * *

Dolf, Hannes, Wannes, and few of Wannes' friends had shadowed Alfred and waiting for a crowd to gather in order to have audience. When there was a crowd of about a hundred people and the press, they pushed past, Hannes in the front opening the others a way and Dolf in the middle of the group with Wannes, Wannes' friends surrounding them and armed with sticks, bats, and a bottle. They headed straight to Alfred.

"Dolf?" Dolf shoved Alfred down into the audience and yelled in order to make his voice heard to everybody present.

"**Think**, people! If your coup succeeds, Alfred will _take your money_ and all of your lives will be dependent on the government's lousy wages! Do you want to all have the same level of livelihood as your neighbors and enemies, and the government that deliberately prevents you from being richer and having stuff the others can't afford?! Because that's _excatly_ what Alfred is telling you, and what are you doing? _Cheering_?!"

Dolf's improv speech caused mutter amongst the audience, but Alfred was already on his feet and crawling back on the platform, and tried to counter the crow's effect on his audience.

"Dear comrades, i'm only aiming for justice, i want justice to return to this country!"

At least part of the audience changed their mind in Alfred's favor, the situation in the crowd between Dolf's escorts and Alfred followers started heating up and people were already threatening each other with weapons even though they weren't being used yet.

"Alfred is justice!" Somebody in the crowd yelled, and a few other voices joined in.

"Besides" Dolf went on "Equality is an utopist dream that will never come true. Look at yourselves, 'equality' means that none will stand above you, yet you worship the ground under Alfred's feet!"

"It might sound bad and we do have a rocky road before us, but as soon as we all calm down and the society will settle into a normalcy..."

"What do you think the duck son of a mole would know about 'normalcy'?"

The mutter grew louder, and people started getting on each other's faces.

What about you that **mongrel**, then?!"

A silence fell, utter enough you could've heard a needle drop. Alfred's finger was pointed at Dolf, who was paralyzed with terror. Alfred looked like he had let Dolf's secret slip by accident, but decided to not back out of the situation in front of his followers.

"Dolf is friends with a bunch of racists, but he is not a pure crow" Alfred continued, mostly to Dolf's followers "His mother was a _blackbird_."

"S-Slander! Propaganda!"

"It's not true, right? _Right_?" Wannes demanded.

"I already said so! Of course not!" He was growing desperate "I'm _not_ a mongrel!"

"And he's got a yellow beak to prove it! He dyes it with shoeshine."

The audience was starting to get tired of the interruption and hostile towards them, one of Alfred's followers climbed on the stage and tried to throw Dolf onto the ground. The fight was sparked by Hannes knocking the bull over with his nightstick.

The crowd erupted into chaos, a few outside observers got involved, and the king's forces on the lookout for riots arrived. Dolf ended up knocked down from the stage anyway, and was trampled. While the others dissappeared into the crowd Hannes and Wannes remained beside Dolf, Hannes beating the previously mentioned bull with a bottle to keep him away from Dolf and Wannes defending mostly himself.

Dolf was kicked on the back and fell face-first onto the wet grass. Somebody was beating him with a club, and the earlier hit had been hard enough that he was dazed and unable to defend himself.

"Dolf!"

The beating stopped and Dolf raised his head, now face to face Wannes, with bull lying on the ground, unmoving. Wannes' face was frozen in shock.

"Dolf..."

Dolf could see black, sticky substance on the ground. Shoeshine. _From his beak_. Dolf panicked and gestured for Wannes to stay quiet, but Wannes called for his friends.

"It was true! Dolf's beak **is** yellow!"

Several people, according their ability as they were in the middle of a street fight, turned to look. Dolf himself was too terrified to do or say anything.


End file.
